


Photograph

by pringlesaremydivision



Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest, obscure fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-23
Updated: 2004-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-23 06:21:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pringlesaremydivision/pseuds/pringlesaremydivision
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rather predictably, Luke reminds Owen of home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Photograph

**Author's Note:**

> Just moving some stuff over from Livejournal.

Rather predictably, Luke reminds Owen of home. Not, necessarily, of the place - though undoubtedly that too - but of the idea, the feeling. The quiet, intangible sense of placement and security.  
  
He has a picture that he took when he was twenty-five stashed away in his desk, beneath script revisions and letters he's always meant to respond to. He takes it out every so often, switches on his light and rifles through the papers until he feels the slick-shiny feel of it under his fingers. The edges of the photograph are cracked and brittle with wear, and if Owen looks hard enough he can find his fingerprints over every inch of the surface, tiny curves and whorls that almost imperceptibly distort the scene.  
  
Owen remembers when he took the picture, remembers the temperature and the wind and the way Luke's lips tasted of ocean salt. He remembers the crash and spray of the water behind him as he struggled to frame Luke just right, remembers Luke's giddy-drunk laughter and the smile that sparked in his eyes. He remembers the exact moment the shutter flashed, the way Luke's face smoothed suddenly only a second before, smoothed and left behind happy eyes reflecting the starlight and a quiet smile that Owen claimed for his own.  
  
A jumble of fingerprints, one fading and smudging into another, is etched atop picture-Luke's smile, and Owen thinks he may be wearing the shiny surface of it completely off. Which worries him more than it should, even though he knows it's irrational and ridiculous and the smile isn't going to disappear even if the protective coating on it does.  
  
To this day Owen sometimes catches that smile on Luke's face, when it's just the two of them and it's quiet and they're both tired, guards down, and it sends him reeling back to that evening, and he has to stop himself from smoothing his fingers over Luke's face to see if it feels the same.  
  
He wonders what would happen if he did, though, and he wonders if Luke would still taste like home too, taste like home the way he did on the beach that night, home and salt and trust.  
  
He wonders, too, if his fingerprints would stay on Luke's skin, and placing the smeared picture back in the drawer he picks up the phone, homesickness tugging at his heart and _lost time_ running through his mind.


End file.
